


Holding Out For A Hero (Or Maybe Not)

by tielan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-26 09:12:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 7,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2646422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Steve Rogers notices Maria Hill is when she steps into the discussion about Loki's capture, and he realises nobody questions her right to be there. And that's just the start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. holding out for a hero (or maybe not)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChElFi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChElFi/gifts).



> Originally conceived for captainhillshipper in Avengersfest. However, due to real life crazy and a broken finger, I wasn't able to complete it back in September when the fic was due.
> 
> When [fuckyeahcaptainhill](http://fuckyeahcaptainhill.tumblr.com/) announced [Captain Hill Week 2014](http://fuckyeahcaptainhill.tumblr.com/post/98490166740/hello-everybody-were-here-to-announce-that-we) to celebrate Maria Hill/Steve Rogers shipping over on Tumblr, I realised that I could reframe the story around the songs themed for each day of the week.
> 
> The first seven chapters are short. I'll post them one a day over the next week or so.
> 
> The eighth chapter kind of blew out: I think it might be longer than all the other chapters combined...

The first time Steve Rogers notices her – really notices – is as she steps into the discussion about Loki’s capture.

She walks into a briefing room of people called in to deal with the crisis caused by an alien godling arrived on Earth to demand their submission. She stands as though she has the right to be there, arms folded, expression intent.

She doesn’t look at them with awe or reverence, with the bright gleam in her eyes that says she stands among icons and famed and dangerous. They might be gods and heroes, women and monsters, but she studies them like they’re tools for a job that needs doing.

She doesn’t chime in with a solution, with what she can do, with what she knows. She questions Stark – twice, Steve notes – and isn’t impressed by the glib answers he gives. It’s a point in her favour, so far as Steve’s concerned.

But most importantly, Steve notices that Stark doesn’t question her right to be here. He doesn’t ask who she is, doesn’t frown, doesn’t dismiss her.

It’s not just Stark either.

None of the others question who she is, why she’s here, what she brings to the table.

It’s only Steve who doesn’t know, who wonders.


	2. demons

After the Chitauri, after the memorial, after seeing Peggy, Steve signs up to work with S.H.I.E.L.D.

He’s put through a series of courses, mostly to train him up in modern weaponry, modern methods, modern technology. He gets his financials in order and settles into an apartment in DC. He starts meeting other S.H.I.E.L.D personnel – admins, agents, handlers, operatives.

Working with Rumlow, he gets the upfront on S.H.I.E.L.D and S.H.I.E.L.D operations. Working with Romanoff, he gets the down and dirty.

“Tell me about Hill,” he say one day in the mess. “How’d she make Fury's deputy so young?”

“Merit, same as anyone.” Natasha eyes him. “You’re not thinking—”

“No.” He makes his answer very firm. “But I don’t think she likes me.”

Most S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel are pleased to meet him – eager, even through their professionalism, like Coulson. Others are professional, but still pleasant to work with. Only Hill remains reserved, her answers terse, her attitude cool.

Natasha is watching him. It’s a few seconds before she responds. “Hill doesn’t like superhumans much.”

The question hovers on Steve’s lips – _why?_ Looking at Natasha’s almost wary expression, though, he knows she’s not going to tell him. Instead, he asks, “So it’s not personal?”

“Personal to her, maybe.” Natasha shrugs. “But, no, Steve, it’s not about you.”

Steve can accept that. It still stings.


	3. (interlude)

Maria Hill is, if not the last person Steve expects to bump into outside a barbershop in Queens, certainly one of the least likely. Casually dressed, her hair tied back, her expression laughing in response to someone’s catcall from inside the shop.

Steve has to take a moment to catch his breath – and not just because she walked into him.

“Hill.”

“Rogers.” She blinks up at him, tenses, and then relaxes. “Old hunting grounds?”

“Once upon a time. You?” He catches more movement in the doorway of the barbershop and moves aside to let the customer pass.

But the man in the door doesn’t try to get past. He hitches a shoulder against the doorjamb, and eyes Steve. “This mook bothering you, Maria? You want I should hustle him off?”

“No, Uncle Toro.” She smiles at the man and Steve’s heart nearly stops. He’s never seen Hill smile before – certainly not like this. “He’s a...a friend. From work.”

“If you say so.”

“I say so. I’ll see you next month, okay?”

“Okay, _bambina_ , you look after yourself.” And Uncle Toro looks at Steve, points his fingers at his own eyes, then points them at Steve before going back inside.

“Family?”

“Of sorts.” She starts off down the street, and Steve falls in beside her. “What are you doing here?”

“This used to be my neighbourhood.”

He keeps his tone mild, but she winces anyway. “Sorry, turning interrogator mode off now.”

They walk a few more steps before she stops dead and turns on her heel. “Why are you walking with me?”

“I thought you were turning interrogator mode off.” The smile escapes him as her stare becomes a glare. “I think this is the most you’ve ever said to me about anything that wasn’t mission-related.”

“I didn’t realise you yearned for my personal conversation, Rogers.”

“I don’t yearn for it, but you’re not usually personal, so this is new.”

“You usually see me at work.”

“But even at work most people get personal.” Steve searches for an example. “Rumlow has a sister he hasn’t spoken to in four years. Kasumi’s daughter is six and she wants a Black Widow custom-made doll from Japan. Johnson’s girlfriend wants him to settle down and marry. Even Coulson had his trading cards.”

Hill looks sidewise at him for a long moment. “You don’t need to know about me, Rogers.”

“Maybe I want to.”

“Maybe you need your head examined.”

“Probably.” Steve waits a beat, then steps forward. It’s making room for a mother with a pram to pass them on the pavement, but he’s also in her personal space, daring her to step back. He doesn’t know why Hill, out of all the people he’s worked with or who’ve tried to be friendly to him.

Maybe it’s as simple as Maria Hill not wanting to be friendly with Captain America. In a world willing to acclaim Steve Rogers for being an international icon, it would be a relief to have someone who wants to be friends in spite of him being Captain America.

And Hill is standing her ground.

“So?” He looks into her eyes, a shifting blue-green framed by long dark lashes. “Do we keep walking?”

Her shoulders lift and fall in a heaving sigh. Exasperation, resignation, and the wry hint of something that's almost a smile on her lips. “Yeah, Rogers, we keep walking.”


	4. (it doesn't have to be) us against the world

He finds Maria in one of the side rooms, typing as though her life depends on it.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“I could say the same of you.” She doesn’t look up from the screen. “Wilson’s taking a nap?”

“And Natasha. Doc’s orders.”

“Good.”

Maria goes back to typing, and Steve watches her fingers fly across the keyboard and doesn’t interrupt. She has her own things to do, and she’ll do them whether or not he’s standing there. And he’s curious what she’s working on this late, this close to a mission, but he knows better than to ask what she's not willing to share.

In spite of their work together at S.H.I.E.L.D, she’s kept him at a distance. If they meet, it’s outside the office; if he asks a personal question in S.H.I.E.L.D spaces, she answers it then moves on to business; if she needs to know something that isn't work, she’ll send him a text, or call out of hours.

There’s a partition between them and Maria’s been assiduous about maintaining it.

Maybe that’s why he’s never asked Maria on anything that could be considered an actual date. They’re friends meeting for coffee or a quick bite, or a walk through some park as they discuss anything from modern mores to international politics. That’s all.

She finishes the email and taps send.

“There are S.H.I.E.L.D operatives still undercover.” The explanation comes without prompting. “Tomorrow, one way or the other, they’ll be exposed. I’m trying to get a warning out so they have a chance, however slim.”

“If HYDRA is dependent on S.H.I.E.L.D then S.H.I.E.L.D has to come down—”

“Do you see me arguing the necessity, Steve?” Maria stretches out her legs, points her toes out in her stocking feet. “I know what needs to be done. I’m trying to minimise the fallout for our people.”

“Some of them will be HYDRA.”

“And some of them won’t be. Innocent until proven guilty.”

“Then why’d you go along with Project Insight?”

“You overestimate my influence. I got the backdoor and the chipset override, and even that was pushing it.” Her eyes meet his, unflinching. “Tomorrow, when we take those helicarriers down, a lot of people on them will be S.H.I.E.L.D through and through – little people who signed up to help save the world. And maybe their death will keep HYDRA from taking absolute power, but they’ll still be dead when the dust settles.”

“You and I might be among them.”

“We get the choice to die for this. They don’t.”

“They’ll have a choice tomorrow – to stand and fight, or to surrender and let HYDRA have its way. It won’t just be us against HYDRA.”

“And how will they know what we’re fighting for?” Maria asks, frowning, before understanding lights her eyes. “Oh, no.”

“You’re trying to minimalise the fallout for our people,” Steve says. “So am I."


	5. hurricane

Steve’s survived worse odds than going up against seven HYDRA agents.

Of course, that day in the elevator, he wasn’t worried about a week’s silence from Sam, exhausted from four days spent on the run, and weak from two days of hunger as his metabolism burns up what little food he’s been able to acquire.

The one advantage – and it’s a very slim one – is that they want him captured rather than killed.

Four are engaging him in close quarters. They’re not his primary concern. Even exhausted against superior numbers he can handle them – block, punch, shield, deflect. It’s the three who are doing distance that have him worried. Because all it takes is a moment’s distracti—

There’s a _pew_ -sound, like a canister being fired. A plume of gas hazes around him and the HYDRA agents fit filters over their mouths. Steve holds his breath for the precious few seconds it will give him as he flings his shield—

Gunfire. Single-shots, precisely aimed. Sniper-fire, not the scatter-shot of someone hoping to hit a target. And high. From someone with elevation or—

“Four o’clock, Rogers.”

He turns on her word alone. Movement, airflow, instinct causes him to duck the shock wand coming at him out of the haze of gas shrouding his sight. He swings the flat of his shield at the HYDRA agent, smacking him in the jaw, dropping him hard even as Steve’s vision swims.

And then there’s Stark walking out of the fog—no, not Stark: _Maria –_ and the warm steel of the Iron Man suit is propping up his shoulder.

“Let’s get you out of here.”

“Been a while.” His voice slurs, exhaustion and relief kicking in as she leads him out of the gas and smoke towards a waiting car. “How you doing?”

She makes a noise like a snort. “Small talk? Now?”

“All I’ve got. Feel dizzy.”

“Because you’re still breathing the sleepygas. Keep talking and I’ll be carrying you, Rogers.”

Steve leans against her, solid strength even without the Iron Man suit. But the suit helps. “Metabolism.”

“Just means you’ll get through it faster—” He hears her say, even as the world shimmers around him. Maria’s voice mutes, but keeps right on talking. “—should come round soon. It’s not toxic – they didn’t want him dead.”

“They’re not the only ones. You’re not staying?”

Steve’s thoughts nudge at his brain to wake up, but it won’t comply. Everything’s comfortable and foggy and right with the world.

“I can’t stay. Look after yourselves.”

_She’s going_. The thought shoves his eyelids up, but there’s only Sam coming back into the room.

“Sleeping Beauty awakens. And you didn’t even need her to kiss you.”

Steve pushes away the thought of Maria’s mouth nipping softly, sweetly at his. “She’s gone?” His voice aches in his throat, although not as much as the squeezing lump that forms when he sees Sam shake his head.

“Come and gone like a hurricane.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Maria totally borrows the Iron Man suit when she feels she needs to - the not-Hotrod-Red-with-Gold-highlights one. (Basically, I will never get tired of having Maria come to the rescue in the IM suit.)


	6. Secrets

There are things Steve doesn’t tell Sam.

\--

“Hey, do you have Hill’s notes on the Yukon facility?”

Steve goes through to his email, pulls up the ‘Operations’ folder, and clicks into the ‘Intel’ subfolder while Sam comes to look over his shoulder.

“Guess you don’t go for subtle naming? Just saying, you could call the top level ‘Friends’ and label it… Huh. Well, I guess this one would be ‘Maria’.”

Steve flicks through the folder of Maria’s mails and finds the message. “What you’re looking for?”

“That’s the bunny.”

Sam skims through it and Steve steps away and tries not to feel self-conscious about keeping all the mails from Maria. They’re all intel-based, after all.

\--

“ _Accompanying Tony Stark was Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries and Stark’s fiancee, Colonel James Rhodes, longtime friend, and a woman who’s been identified as Maria Hill, formerly of the discredited intel agency, S.H.I.E.L.D. While Ms. Hill’s position at Stark Industries is old news, her friendship with Colonel Rhodes is new to us here at Gossip Gauge – and clearly a very comfortable one…_ ”

It takes Steve a moment to recognise the elegant woman in the dark blue gown, her hair up, her hand in the crook of Colonel Rhodes’ arm.

“I met him once,” Sam says, scrubbing down the frypan. “After Riley went down. He was on-base, came by to see how I was doing.”

“Why?”

“Guess he knew about losing a friend in action – when Stark was taken by the terrorists, before the whole Iron Man deal, Rhodes was in the convoy, too. He was better than a lot of of the brass – sympathy without syrup.”

Steve watches the TV screen as he finishes drying off the platter. A faint frown of irritation chases across Maria’s face as she spots the paparazzi and says something to Colonel Rhodes, an easy aside. Rhodes’ glance at the camera is scornful.

Discomfort uncurls in Steve’s gut as Rhodes’ reply curves her lips, softening her expression moments before they turn away to go inside to the fundraiser.

So Sam speaks well of the guy.

Doesn’t mean Steve has to like him.

\--

Steve glances up from his dinner plate to meet Maria’s gaze. He arches a brow and her lashes dip in a double-blink as she realises she was staring.

“Sorry. Tired. I’m not good company tonight.”

“Hey, it’s my fault for invading. I just…I didn’t think it was right to intrude on Sam’s family right now.”

She shrugs as she sits up, her elbows on the edge of the table, her hands clasped together. “It’s fine.” That lovely, rare smile flickers on a mouth that still carries the traces of the day’s lipstick. “You saved me having to choose a takeaway place.”

When she starts to gather the plates, though, he touches her wrist, feels soft skin tense. “I’ll do it. You’re asleep on your feet.”

“Cook doesn’t clean.”

“I don’t want to have to rescue you from drowning in the sink,” he retorts. “Go to bed, Maria. That’s an order.”

The salute stings a little, but then, Steve did start it.

As he washes up, and carefully doesn’t listen to Maria moving about the apartment as she gets ready for bed, Steve tries not to think about how domestic this is – how ‘normal’.

Sam’s reunion with his family shook something in him. It’s the realisation that the life Steve has his buddy living isn’t normal by any standards. Even a vet working counselling down at the VA had a regularity to his life that Captain America’s best buddy doesn’t – and that’s on Steve and his hunt for Bucky.

A memory surfaces – a comment by Natasha back when he first started with S.H.I.E.L.D and was getting used to working with Rumlow and the guys. _We preserve what others think of normal, but people like us? We don’t get to be normal._

He doesn’t want to be normal – not really.

Except when Maria comes out to wish him a sleepy goodnight, Steve has to fight the urge to lean over for a goodnight kiss. It’s not his place, not his right.

But he almost wishes it was.

\--

“How’s Hill?”

“Fine. Busy.” Steve relaxes back into the couch. “Tired.”

“So you tucked her in and kissed her goodnight?” He might think it was a joke, except that Sam doesn’t double-take when Steve doesn’t protest. “Hey, I’m not grieving you; Hill’s classy.”

Steve thinks about waiting for her to get home, about cooking dinner while she asked about his search, about the smile she gave him just before she went to bed. He thinks about definitions of normal and what he can and can’t have.

He puts it away as he looks at Sam. “It’s not that simple.”

“Yeah, it never is.”

\--

There are things Steve doesn’t tell Sam.

There are things he doesn’t need to.


	7. till the casket drops

Steve hears the gunfire as he rides up the hill at breakneck pace. He unslings the shield from his back, controlling the purloined motorcycle with one hand, even as he crests the hill. It takes him a split-second to get a sitrep: the attackers manning the perimeter, the cluster of operatives at the door of the abandoned factory – the man lifting his boot to kick in the door.

Closer to the fence, a pale, pointed face stares – Randall Hudson, a S.H.I.E.L.D-turned-HYDRA operative. He starts speaking into a communicator, and Steve hurls the shield without thought. Without thought, but not without calculation. The shield lifts Hudson off his feet and his communicator goes flying.

The others on the perimeter turn their weapons on Steve, who catches the shield on the rebound, even as he’s revving the bike for the next man in the perimeter. A bullet glances off his suit, wobbling his balance, but the mesh does its job. And then he has his shield back, he’s on top of his next target, and the shield is a projectile at the man beyond that.

More gunfire – different gunfire. Careful, measured shots beneath the chatter of semi-automatic weaponry. Someone is shooting back with lethal intent and HYDRA agents fall as head-shots and heart-shots take them down with precise accuracy.

Steve’s heart lifts. She’s alive.

As he nears the door, he swerves the bike and leaps off. His shield is protection as he curls, rolls, comes to his feet with a handgun in hand, and barrels through the door.

Shouts and shots across the empty warehouse floor. Shapes and shadows on the move. HYDRA hunting Maria as Captain America is hunting them.

Two shots take out the duo heading for the stairwell door, the flat of his shield takes out the one who leaps at him out of the darkness of the unlit stairwell. Stairs, and echoing shouts. Gunfire that batters his shield before they give up and move higher. More gunfire – careful and deliberate, conserving bullets. The door to the next floor opens on a space littered with bodies - and a shadow just stepping into the room beyond.

Fear rips through him, desperation flings the shield.

The scene replays in his head – the roof, the night, the turn.

Light gleams across segmented silver as the shield is caught with nothing more than a dull thump. Vibranium swallows sound and impact both as metal strikes metal. And a pale, shocked face stares back, as familiar to Steve as his own – _more_.

Words from the room beyond – female, too low for Steve to catch what she’s saying, but the familiar cadence of her voice stutters his heart.

_Maria._

Bucky’s head turns towards her, eyes wide. He slides the shield onto his arm and strides into the room.

Steve registers the high-pitched whine. _RPG_ , his instincts cry as his legs take him after Bucky, into the dusty emptiness of a one-time break room where Maria is leaning against the cabinets with her right hand pressed up against her left shoulder—

Oh, sweet Mother of Christ, the _blood—_

—the RPG— _No time_ —Steve flings himself over Maria, covering her with his body. It’s not going to be enough, not against a direct hit by a grenade— But even as he goes down into a protective huddle over her, he sees Bucky sprinting for the window, still holding the shield as he leaps.

Glass shatters in fragments of sound. The explosion overtakes it a moment later, shaking the building, shattering windows and cracking walls. Dust and smoke and burning ash wash through the room in the aftermath, and beneath it all lingers the too-human scent of sweaty skin and coppery blood.

“Steve?” It’s little more than a thready breath. She’s pale, her pupils dark and huge in a dust-smeared face as she stares up at him. Her expression twitches into something that might be a wince of pain, that might be a frown. “Bucky.”

“I know.” He touches her cheek once, then hovers his hand over the wound in her shoulder. “This is going to hurt.”

“Yes. Do it.” She makes a choked noise as he applies careful pressure to stem the bleeding, but doesn’t pass out, although her eyes close. “You need to go.”

“What? Go where?”

“After Bucky.” Her lashes are dark and perfectly curved. “He remembers. Gaps. But he remembers. Go after him.”

Steve stares at her,thinking of Bucky’s grip on the shield, of the leap out the window, of the explosion that splintered the windows and shook the building but didn’t take them out. He thinks of the long fruitless months that he’s been looking for his old friend, of the six endless days since Maria went missing.

“No.” He says it for himself as well as her. “You need medical assistance first.”

Bucky’s survived this long without Steve; he can survive a bit longer. And Maria’s losing what little colour she has. Steve reaches for his phone, punches in the speed dial. “Sam, I’ve got Maria, injured. Gun-shot wound; shoulder. ”

“We’ve tracked you. Ms. Potts has a team coming. How’s Hill?”

“Conscious—” But she’s not going to stay that way – not for much longer. “She’s fading fast.”

Maria’s lashes are falling again, jerking up as she tries to stay conscious, drooping as exhaustion and injury pull her under.

“Hey, Maria!” Steve tilts her chin up so her gaze meets his. “Maria, stay with me.”

She focuses on him for a second. “Steve.”

“Stay with me.” He cradles her jaw with his free hand. “Stay with me.”

Her lashes flutter down as she exhales. “Staying. Tired.”

* * *

Later, while Maria’s in surgery, Steve waits.

There are no observation rooms in this facility. Maybe it’s just as well. Steve doesn’t want to remember Fury ‘dying’ on the operating table. He doubts Maria would get any such second chances.

A footstep pauses at the door. He looks up to find Sam in the doorway, the Falcon pack still on his shoulders, Steve’s shield over his arm. “Hey. Spotted this while doing a recon.”

 _Bucky._ Steve takes the shield from Sam, running his fingers over the surface. The star’s barely visible, the rings scraped and scabbed with soot and other debris.

“No sign of Bucky. But the guy’s a survivor, Steve.” He nods at a passing hospital tech and sits next to Steve. “So’s Hill.”

 _Stay with me._ The memory bubbles up in him – words he’s wanted to say for a while, even if not the way he said them today.

But it’s what she’ll accept from him, what he’s allowed to give.

Bucky's gone, and he'll deal with that later. Right now, Steve clings to the thought that, wounded and hazy, Maria didn’t fight him but let him protect her.


	8. safe and sound

It’s a small and petty thing, but Steve’s glad he’s the only one there when Maria wakes.

Pepper comes to see her, with Stark in tow. They leave when Stark starts picking at Steve, and Steve can’t quite forbear from pushing back. Sam stays for a while, until he realises that Steve wants solitude, not company, and leaves with a warm grip to the shoulder. Doc Fine turns up, and Steve doesn’t need to be told that the Doc is Fury’s eye on Maria.

Someone who simply calls himself ‘Wade’ gets hold of Steve’s number and asks eagerly after Maria in a way that raises Steve’s hackles, then just giggles when Steve refuses to tell him exactly where Maria’s recovering. _Give her my love,_ Wade says, _and tell her I’ll be waiting for her when she’s ready to play again._

Calls also come in from Bruce, Natasha and Barton (both of them at once on speakerphone), and a woman whose flat voice only identifies herself as ‘May’ and who claims she’s calling on behalf of the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Steve thinks to himself that if the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D wants to know so badly about Maria, he can damn well ask himself. In the six months since DC, Steve hasn’t even had the courtesy of an introduction to Fury’s alleged successor. Not that he particularly wants it, given how S.H.I.E.L.D ended.

Still, he’s polite to May and gives her the same answer as everyone else: the surgeries went fine and Maria will recover so long as she doesn’t strain herself.

 _Good luck with that,_ says May before she hangs up.

But it’s just him and Maria when he glimpses movement in the corner of his eye – her legs shifting beneath the sheets. He looks up from his e-Reader to find her looking over at the iPod – soft, playful jazz. Then she turns to look at him, her gaze somehow unsurprised.

“Hey.” Steve smiles. “How are you feeling?”

“Fuzzy.” Given the drugs she’s on, Steve’s surprised she’s awake and coherent at all. Then again, this is Maria. After a few seconds, during which she looks like she’s pulling together in a great effort, she manages, “How long?”

“Two days. Well, eight since you got taken, two since we found you.” And he’s babbling. Not that she notices; her next question is serious.

“Barnes?”

“Gone. Took out the RPG and ran.”

He’s tried not to let that sting – that Bucky couldn’t or wouldn’t stay, that he could give Steve the shield, but not his trust. It still scrapes him raw to think about it, worse than the discovery that Bucky was alive and HYDRA had turned him into an assassin.

Steve doesn’t know what happened during those six days while Maria was missing. Nobody does. But in that time, Bucky earned respect enough from Maria that she called him ‘Barnes’, told Steve to go after him, and let him defend her in a fight.

One of hers.

She closes her eyes, takes slow and careful breaths. When she speaks again, her voice is fading. “Told you to go after him.”

“You don’t give me orders.” And seeing her is such a relief, Steve doesn’t resist the urge to touch her hand. “And I wasn’t going to leave when you were injured.”

Her lashes flutter, but don’t open. “Don’t need protection, Rogers.”

“Yes, Maria,” he says softly as the drugs take her under again, her lashes resting still and soft against her cheek, her hand resting slim and cold under his. “You do.”

* * *

It should be enough to know she’s safe and sound. That she’s whole (well, mostly) and recovering.

“Okay, time for a come-to-Jesus talk,” Sam says one morning as Steve is clicking restlessly through the emails that built up in the last couple of days and wondering where Bucky is now, what happens next, whether Maria’s up to taking visitors.

“A what?”

“A come-to-Jesus talk,” Sam says. “Straight up, Steve. Today, you’re going to go up to the tower and see Hill. You’re going to take her flowers. And you’re going to talk about what happened with Bucky.”

Steve stares at his friend, bemused. “Nothing happened with Bucky.”

“Exactly. Except that I’ve put up with you moping for the last three days, so it was a bit more than nothing.”

“ _Moping_?”

“Whatever it is, I’ve been dealing with your shit for three days.” Sam gives him a knowing look – tilted head and raised brows. “And you want to see her again anyway.”

Steve’s not going to argue with that. “So it’s for my own good?”

“We’re buds, right? Of course it’s for your own good.”

Steve gives in and goes. Because Sam is right – he usually is – Steve wants to know about Bucky. And he wants to see Maria.

* * *

JARVIS lets him in, informing him that Ms. Hill is in the minor lounge.

Steve has no idea where that is, but it’s okay because the elevator takes him there.

The minor lounge is bigger than most houses Steve’s seen. Steve doesn’t even want to think about what’s in the _major_ lounge. The size of it also means there’s a hell of a long way between the door and the couch where Maria is sitting, propped up on cushions, her shoulder braced and immobilised, tapping away on a tablet like she’s in an office rather than in one of the plushest rooms in one of the fanciest buildings that money and power can buy.

She watches Steve as he crosses the room, looking at his face, not at the flowers he brought her.

“You want to know about Barnes.”

“‘Hi, Steve, thanks for coming.’ ‘Actually, Sam pushed me into it.’ ‘Really? Why’d he do that?’ ‘Because I was moping and he was tired of it. And I wanted to see you. And talk about Bucky, too, but mostly just to see you.’”

His outburst surprises them both. Maria stares at him, bright colour pouring into her cheeks, her expression shocked. And Steve curses himself for letting everything get to him – the kidnapping, Bucky, her injury – for bringing up something that he was going to leave well enough alone.

But it pushes at him – the way she never stops, never slows, even recovering from a six-day kidnapping and a bullet in the shoulder.

She looks after him and everyone else – even Bucky.

Who looks after her? Who does she let look after her?

 _She let you look after her,_ he reminds himself as he offers her the bouquet of tulips – white with a scarlet streak in the middle of each petal: elegant and vicious, and therefore perfectly Maria.

Maria hesitates, then accepts the flowers. “Thanks.”

Steve reins in his frustration at the careful way she took the bouquet – as though acceptance might entail obligations she’s not willing to give. As though Steve would take anything from her that she wasn’t willing to offer him, freely, without strings attached.

But he won’t say that. She doesn’t want to hear it from him. So he sits down on the edge of the ottoman and focuses on work. “Tell me about Bucky, then. You said he remembered.”

She puts the tulips down on her lap. “Bits and pieces. Not to start with – when he kidnapped me, he was focused on the mission.”

“You.”

“I was in the public eye and accessible. So Barnes targeted me. I think he was holding me for HYDRA at first.”

“You don’t know?”

“He was...fuzzy on that point. And we only started talking a day or two in. Mostly he wanted to know about you.”

“You said he remembered. Parts.”

“His memories were sketchy – what they did to him made it hard for him to remember. But he remembered you – when you recognised him. That was my in.” Her fingers brushed one of the flowers. “The notes JARVIS dug up from HYDRA archives indicated that some form of recognition imprinting was involved. They would have used Pierce as a template, I imagine. Which may have worked in our favour when Bucky was sent after you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Alexander Pierce wasn’t so far off from you in his younger days: appearance, charisma, leadership.”

“I feel like I should be insulted.”

“Why? Because he justified the means with the end? Because he twisted his responsibilities to the people who looked to him for protection?”

“You sound like you admire him.”

“I didn’t like him. He treated me like I was Fury’s pet agent, but he wasn’t the first to do so and he wouldn’t have been the last. But I didn’t have to like him to appreciate his drive and his ability to command, even if he could be ruthless if he thought you were any kind of a threat he couldn’t get on-side. And,” she adds, “I figure that if you can’t admire your enemy’s resourcefuness, then you’re looking at too small a problem.”

Steve lets that pass – for the moment at least. “They used Pierce as a substitute for me?”

“It broke when they sent him after you. The psychological imprint clashed with the reality of his encounter with you, particularly once you recognised him. They tried imprinting him again, but then they sent him after you again, so...” Maria shrugs – or tries to. A hiss escapes her as the movement pulls at her shoulder. The colour drains from her cheeks, and Steve starts out of his chair, about to call JARVIS to get whatever medical assistance is available, but her other hand comes up to wave him back down. “No, I’m fine.”

“Why don’t I believe that?”

She flashes him a sharp look, even as she sighs and settles. “I’m trying, okay?”

Steve bites back the retort that she should try harder. Telling Maria Hill to try harder is redundant in any situation. Besides, now that she’s relaxed back in her chair, breathing carefully, she’s watching him.

He could ask, but he decides he’d rather stare back. Apparently this disturbs her, because she starts up again, a little hurried. “Barnes. You went back for him. At the Triskelion, when you told me to fire up the program to take the helicarriers down, you went back for him.”

There’s a lot in her words – memories, recriminations, aftermaths.

Steve sticks with the simple stuff. “He would have done the same for me. He did the same for me – even before I was Captain America.”

_But the little guy who wouldn’t back down from a fight? I’m following him._

“I think he remembered that,” Maria says quietly. “He wanted to know why you wouldn’t fight him. I couldn’t give him all of it, only the bits you’ve given me, but I could reset his psychological north to you.”

“Not me.” Steve shakes his head, wondering that she doesn’t see it. “ _You._ He ran from me.” It’s all started falling into place. “He took my shield, took out the RPG that was aimed at us, let me to look out for you. Why? Those twenty HYDRA agents weren’t there for a single S.H.I.E.L.D agent who’s sold out to the private sector – they can take you on any street corner in New York if they want – and you’re just Fury’s pet agent. They wanted Bucky.”

Her mouth quirks, more amusement than insult. “Gee, Rogers, thanks.”

“Bucky ran because they’re after him, and staying endangered you.” And, that simply, leaving Steve’s shield behind wasn’t a sign of distrust, but a message. “You were his mission. And the mission’s stayed the same, but the objective’s changed – you changed it when you turned from hostage to handler.”

She shakes her head. “He needed someone he could trust—”

“If putting a firing weapon in the hands of a woman who he’d kidnapped six days earlier and letting her watch his back isn’t an act of trust, then I don’t know what is. You earned Lieutenant Barnes’ trust, Maria.” Steve smiles to see her pause, eyes wide, her mouth open as the denial dies on her lips. “I think it’s been a while since anyone did that.”

There’s a moment when she struggles with the idea. Then she sighs. “I was just trying to point him back to you.”

“Maybe you did. He took my shield and went for the missile, and left me to protect you.” Gave Maria back to the world he’d stolen her from, so she could look after those who needed her, and left the shield for Steve to pick up again, so he could protect her and others who needed him.

“I don’t need protecting. I can take care of myself.”

“But you don’t have to. Not all the time.” Steve meets her frown. “You look after everyone else, Maria. Who looks after you?”

“I look after me.”

Steve snorts. “You know, I had more calls in the two days while you were in hospital than I’ve had in the two months before that. From Natasha and Barton to people I’d never even heard of, and that new Director you won’t tell me about.”

She blinks. “You _spoke_ with the new Director?”

“No,” Steve tries not to sound surly. “‘May’ called on his behalf.”

“Oh.”

“There are a lot of people you look after, who’d like to care about you. And yet I think the only people you let look after you are Potts and Stark. And only because they tag-team you – while you’re busy dealing with Stark’s demands, Ms. Potts makes all the arrangements and then steamrollers you into place.”

She smiles then. An open, _real_ smile that catches at his heart. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone describe Pepper like that.”

“Am I wrong?”

“Steve, I can look after myself.”

“I know. But that doesn’t stop—” Steve bites that off before it can go any further. Then decides he might as well lay it out. He’s come this far, he can take the final step. “That doesn’t stop me from wishing you’d let me look after you.”

The words hang there, unflinching between them, even as Maria’s cheeks go pink and Steve fights back the urge to babble. There’s nowhere else to look, nowhere else to go. If she wants to avoid an awkward silence, she’s going to have to address what he’s just said and defuse the situation, or yank the conversation in a new direction.

“Thank you,” she says at last, dropping her gaze. “I...I don’t think anyone’s ever said—wanted—not that they said— God, this is awkward.”

“It doesn’t have to be. We’ve worked together on and off for the last six months since S.H.I.E.L.D went down. This doesn’t change anything.”

“The last _six months_?”

“Possibly longer.” Steve isn’t entirely sure when or where or how or even why. Only that this is where he’s ended up. He doesn’t blame her for not ending up in the same space – he can’t. She’s passed along intel and given him assistance at every turn, and asked nothing of him in return. “I’m not going to apologise, Maria. This doesn’t change what we are.”

“Have I asked for an apology?”

“No,” he said in fairness. “But I feel like I should. It would be...polite.”

“Polite?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” She looks down at the flowers in her lap again. The silence stretches long.

“You don’t have to—”

Maria holds up a hand. “Just after Fury ‘died’, Pierce questioned my loyalty to S.H.I.E.L.D. Not personally,” she says, her eyes meeting his. “I didn’t get the consideration of a personal conversation. Instead, Pierce sent Sitwell as messenger, and Sitwell delivered the message publically in a room full of Launch Control personnel.”

Her voice is calm, but the shock of the accusation – the betrayal of it – is there in the careful way she speaks.

There’s a hot leaden weight in Steve’s gut and his hands are clenching into fists. He makes himself listen as she continues.

“It was after you and Natasha had gone on the run with the drive. In the midst of everything, Jasper questioned my loyalties. And you were cited as the reason my ability to do my job was in question.” She stares into the space between them. “It happens. I’ve seen it happen before in the military. I didn’t...I didn’t think it would happen to me – not in S.H.I.E.L.D, not coming from Jasper. And certainly not with Captain America.”

Steve knows what it’s like to be helpless, to feel trapped by things over which he has no control. He knows what it’s like to watch a friend go down and not be able to help.

This is worse.

They didn’t just questions Maria’s allegiances, they questioned her competence, her ethos, and her relationships. And they used Steve as the bludgeon intended to take her out of the fight.

“I’m sorry.” It’s the only thing he has, and it’s not enough. Not for what Pierce and Sitwell and HYDRA did to her. “Why didn’t you say—?”

“It wasn’t your fault. I knew the risks when I let you get personal.”

“But I didn’t. I didn’t think of the risks when I pushed. And you never said anything.” Steve was the one who stepped into her space, who angled for more than a coolly professional interaction. He thought it was harmless enough – someone who wasn’t trying to be friendly with Captain America, whose friendship he could trust.

He never thought of how it might be on her side – a woman with a great deal to lose if someone took the wrong view of her friendship with a national icon.

No wonder she’s never seen him as anything more than a weapon.

Steve draws in a deep breath. “Okay. Now I understand why you can’t—” He stops. _Don’t go_ there. “You don’t have to—You don’t owe me anything, Maria. We’re friends. We’ll leave it at that.” Then he sees her expression. Cold spiders of dread crawl through him. “What?”

“I was going to cut you loose today,” she says simply. “When you turned up with flowers, I was going to explain that this was as far as I could go – that you were on your own from here.”

Is it strange to feel the loss of someone he’s never had, even before she’s gone?

Steve struggles with the responses that rise in his throat and manages to settle on the least demanding. “Why?”

Her hand curls around the stems of the tulips in her lap. “You’re a man who inspires loyalty, Steve. You always were – even before the serum made you what you are now. And I...I’d begun questioning my motives – whether I was helping you because of HYDRA and the Winter Soldier, or because it was because you needed to find Bucky and I couldn’t say no.”

“But you’re cutting me loose.”

“I was going to.”

“Why?”

“Professionally, Barnes isn’t a threat to S.H.I.E.L.D anymore. Wherever he is – and I’m pretty sure he’s gone to ground – I’d no longer class him as an enemy. You didn’t need my help if you’re not looking for Bucky.”

“Need? No. Want?” Steve puts the matter of Bucky aside for the moment. Bucky ran from him and that’s something he’ll deal with later. But he’s got to face Maria now, before she backs away from even their friendship, or he’s likely to lose her forever. “So, professionally, you don’t need to help me if I’m not looking for Bucky. And personally?”

Maria looks away. “There were always people who were going to think I got the position of Fury’s deputy for reasons other than my competence. I knew that when I took the job. And I...don’t have a good history with superhuman types. Don’t ask.”

Steve doesn’t.

“Personally, I let you get close, Steve. And HYDRA questioned my professionalism because of it.”

“That was an excuse and you know it. They’re HYDRA and they were looking for an excuse to discredit you. I’m sorry they used our relationship to do it, but that doesn’t apply anymore – I doubt either Miss Potts or Stark are going to question or care whether or not we’re friends.” Steve knows his expression is grim. “Look, you don’t want anything from me—”

“I don’t _want_ to want anything from you.” She pauses, as though the admission surprised her, too. Then, more slowly, she adds, “There’s a difference.”

“Is there a difference from where I’m sitting?”

This time, she doesn’t look away. “Even without everything that’s happened in the last year I’m not a good bet, Steve.”

“I’m not a betting man.” Hope is a seeping glow in his belly, the breath caught and held before exhalation. And maybe it’s time to get to the point. “Do you want me, Maria? That’s all it comes down to in the end, whatever excuses you’re making.”

Uncertainty lingers in the silence between them. His challenge laid out, her answer unvoiced.

Maria sags a little. “You gave those people in the Triskelion and on the helicarrier the choice to fight. You apologised for something that isn’t even your fault.” Her fingers close around the bouquet still sitting in her lap. “You brought me flowers. Yes, I want you.”

The admission – simple, absolute, sensuous – slides across his senses like an unexpected caress across his skin, stealing the breath from his lungs.

Steve gets to his feet and crosses over to her couch. Sits down on the edge of it, closes his hand over hers in the flowers. In her space, yes, but still giving her the choice. “Are you sure?”

“Are you?”

In a moment, he realises she’ll always question her own worth – oh, not professionally, but personally, as a woman.

In that moment, he realises he’ll never let that question go unchallenged between them again.

Her mouth is soft when he leans over to touch his lips to hers. And Maria opens to him, tender and tentative at first, then growing fiercer, surer as he leans into her. She’s warmth and strength and shield and shelter and Steve wants to linger over the taste of her lower lip, savour the little sigh she makes in her throat as she lets herself give in to the kiss.

A shiver runs through him.

Maybe Steve can’t get drunk on alcohol anymore, but Maria makes his head spin. Is there anything more intoxicating than an independent woman giving him permission to care?

Still, he draws back before he gets in too deep, before he forgets that she’s still injured and pushes further than she can manage right now. But he laces his fingers more firmly into hers as he pulls back – carefully, not jostling her injured shoulder – he’s not letting her go, not this time, not anymore.

And watching her lick the taste of him from her lips as her lashes flicker up is a pleasure all its own.

“Still sure?” He makes it teasing and light, but a thread of uncertainty lingers.

“Maybe.” Her eyes are cool azure but her gaze burns hot as she replies, “Kiss me again and I’ll tell you.”

“Is that an order?”

“I thought I don’t get to give you orders anymore.”

“True.” Steve leans in so his mouth is just over hers. “But what if I want you to say please?”

“Mm, maybe later.”

He grins and kisses her like it’s an order.

* * *

Later, Maria does say ‘please’.

It’s not an order. But Steve obeys nevertheless.

Very carefully.

* * *

Later yet, Maria murmurs, “ _Moping_?”

Steve just grins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
